The Buffalo Sabres have agreed to terms with restricted free-agent defenseman Rasmus Dahlin on a three-year deal with an average annual value of $6 million, the team announced Wednesday.

The 21-year-old registered 23 points over 56 games last season, and his responsibilities increased under Don Granato. Dahlin averaged 23:26 minutes of ice time toward the end of the campaign following the head coaching switch in March.

The Sabres selected him with the first overall pick in 2018 and will be looking for the blue-liner to make a leap in the coming years. The offensively talented rearguard has registered 18 goals and 89 assists over 197 games.

Dahlin was the final remaining restricted free agent on the Sabres' books this offseason. He'll be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights after this bridge deal expires in 2023-24, according to CapFriendly.

Buffalo now holds $17.6 million in projected cap space.

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The Women’s World Championship will now be held annually, including in Olympic years, the IIHF announced Wednesday.

In non-Olympic years, the competition will be held in March and April, and it will take place in August during Olympic years. The change was made because holding two tournaments over two months isn't feasible, as most players maintain day jobs.

"We had many times discussions with the top countries. They are always at the Olympics but couldn't play a few weeks later again, so we discussed whether it could work if we played in August," said IIHF Women's committee chairwoman Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer. "We know that after the Olympics many players end their careers with a highlight and that gives the opportunity to work with new players entering the team."

Since 2014, only the teams in lower divisions in the women's competition would compete during the same year as the Olympics. The top division was excluded, which created promotion and relegation difficulties.

"We wanted to find a long-term solution because we had a challenge with promotion and relegation every four years. We wanted to solve different issues with this proposal. It is a really fair solution for all the countries participating in the women's program," said Kolbenheyer.

The 2021 women’s worlds were held in Calgary, with Canada triumphing over the United States for gold.

The Danish Ice Hockey Union has applied to host the 2022 women’s worlds in August.

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Columbus Blue Jackets president of hockey operations John Davidson confirmed Tuesday that forward Zac Rinaldo was not invited to training camp because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Columbus Dispatch's Brian Hedger.

Davidson added that the rest of the Blue Jackets' 67 camp invitees are all vaccinated and Rinaldo will start with the club's AHL affiliate once it begins to practice.

Ronaldo, a 31-year-old Ontario native, appeared at a right-wing political rally in Canada last week and gave a speech against vaccine passports. "I'm not anti-vax, I'm not anti-mask. I'm pro choice," he said, according to the Hamilton Spectator's Matthew Van Dongen.

"The ball is in his court right now," Columbus general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said Tuesday, per The Athletic's Aaron Portzline. "We do everything as a team. That's a requirement of being a Blue Jacket. We're going with the group we have here, which is 100% vaccinated. We'll see how it develops."

This isn't the first time that the Blue Jackets have had to navigate the NHL's new vaccination protocols. They had to replace assistant coach Sylvain Lefebvre earlier in September after he refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The NHL released a memo in August saying all hockey operations personnel must be fully vaccinated. Teams can reportedly suspend unvaccinated players if they are unable to participate in league activities. Players can apparently be excepted from that policy for medical reasons or due to strong religious beliefs.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly projected 98% of players will be vaccinated by the time the 2021-22 season begins in October.

Rinaldo signed a one-year, two-way $750,000 deal with Columbus this offseason.

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Alex Galchenyuk is apparently giving it another go with the Arizona Coyotes.

The 27-year-old forward signed a professional tryout deal in the desert Tuesday, according to TSN's Pierre LeBrun.

Galchenyuk played for the Coyotes during the 2018-19 season, recording 41 points over 72 games. He's played for six teams throughout his NHL career thus far, including the Montreal Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins, Minnesota Wild, Ottawa Senators, and, most recently, Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Leafs were pleasantly surprised by Galchenyuk's performance last campaign after acquiring him midseason. Galchenyuk registered 12 points across 26 regular-season contests in Toronto.

He's coming off a one-year deal worth $1.05 million.

Galchenyuk has scored 140 goals and 193 assists over 583 career games.

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The Detroit Red Wings are bringing back forward Bobby Ryan on a professional tryout, the team announced Tuesday.

Ryan suited up for the club in 2020-21 after signing a one-year deal worth $1 million during the offseason.

He registered 14 points over 33 contests while averaging 15:19 minutes per game, but his campaign was cut short after the veteran suffered an upper-body injury in late March. The 34-year-old underwent surgery a month later.

The winger spent the first 14 seasons of his NHL career with the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators. He's recorded 569 points over 866 games.

Ryan was awarded the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy in 2020.

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The Detroit Red Wings are bringing back forward Bobby Ryan on a professional tryout, the team announced Tuesday.

Ryan suited up for the club in 2020-21 after signing a one-year deal worth $1 million during the offseason.

He registered 14 points over 33 contests while averaging 15:19 minutes per game, but his campaign was cut short after the veteran suffered an upper-body injury in late March. The 34-year-old underwent surgery a month later.

The winger spent the first 14 seasons of his NHL career with the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators. He's recorded 569 points over 866 games.

Ryan was awarded the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy in 2020.

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The Ottawa Senators signed forward Tyler Ennis to a professional tryout contract ahead of training camp, the team announced Sunday.

Ennis suited up for the Senators during the 2019-20 campaign after inking a one-year, $800,000 deal. He registered 33 points across 61 games in Ottawa before being shipped to the Edmonton Oilers at the trade deadline that season.

"Tyler played well here in Ottawa in 2019-20. He has considerable NHL experience and someone we'll look forward to evaluating as camp gets underway," Senators general manager Pierre Dorion said. "The PTO represents a good opportunity for both him and for us."

The 31-year-old posted nine points over 30 contests with the Oilers last year while seeing his ice time dip to just over 12 minutes per game, its lowest mark since the 2017-18 campaign.

Ennis spent his first eight years in the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres. He's also enjoyed brief stints with the Minnesota Wild and Toronto Maple Leafs during his career.

He's produced 322 points across 643 career contests.

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St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong is joining the list of those who expect discontented sniper Vladimir Tarasenko to be with the team when the puck first drops in October.

"There's a good likelihood that he'll be there," Armstrong said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Jim Thomas. "Vladi and I have talked about that. He understands."

Armstong said he recognizes Tarasenko's desire to be traded, but the NHL's current pandemic-altered landscape didn't give St. Louis an appropriate opportunity to give the longtime Blues winger what he wanted.

"It’s a difficult industry right now. It's a flat cap. Vladi hasn’t played a lot of hockey in the last couple years. He knows he’s gonna have to go out there and play very well," Armstrong said.

Shoulder injuries have mired Tarasenko's career in recent years - he's only appeared in 34 regular-season games over the past two campaigns, and he put up 14 points in 24 contests in 2020-21. The 29-year-old was reportedly unhappy with the way St. Louis handled two of his three shoulder surgeries, and the saga made him lose trust with the club.

Fortunately for both the Blues and the Russian forward, the doctor who performed Tarasenko's most recent surgery said his shoulder should be 100% for this season.

"I guess my (hope) is that he’ll be playing so good that he won’t want to be traded," Armstrong said. "And we won’t want to trade him.

"We just have to have a good season. He has to have a good season. He wants to play for a number of years, and to do that, he's gotta make himself marketable. And to do that, we have to be a good team for him, too."

St. Louis head coach Craig Berube echoed that point earlier this month, saying he expects Tarasenko to play some "good hockey" with the Blues.

Tarasenko, who the Blues drafted 16th overall in 2010, has 442 points in 531 games and has scored over 30 goals in a campaign five times in his career.

Training camp begins in late September.

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No one's signed a deal yet, but the communication lines between Vancouver Canucks general manager Jim Benning and restricted free agents Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes are entirely open.

According to Benning, he's in touch with the pair's agent at least every other day.

"We have a good relationship," Benning told Sportsnet's Iain MacIntyre. "There's no angry sides. We're just trying to work through it to figure out how to make everybody happy."

"We're just trying to figure out how to get to some common ground from their perspective and our perspective, he added. "They're important players in the future of our team and our group, but these are complicated deals."

Complicated or not, Benning is hopeful there's enough time to get the contracts done before training camp, which starts next week.

"I'd like to try to figure it out because I feel like they're still young players, they're still developing and I think training camp is important for them," Benning elaborated.

The Canucks are looking at bridge deals for the two stars in order to get something signed, although the sides have discussed both short- and long-term contracts. MacIntyre reports.

Pettersson told a Swedish media outlet in August that while he wasn't worried about getting a new deal done with Vancouver, he does want to play for a winning team. Last season was difficult for the Canucks and the 22-year-old, who was limited to just 26 games due to injury.

Hughes, meanwhile, has been quiet on the contract negotiation front.

Whether or not Pettersson and Hughes are in the Canucks' lineup, the puck drops on Vancouver's season on Oct. 13.

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After a few years of turmoil that culminated in an unceremonious sweep in the 2021 playoffs, the Winnipeg Jets are officially done treading water in the defensive zone.

"We managed incredibly well over two years with a real extreme set of circumstances … It could have been devastating," Jets head coach Paul Maurice said, according to the Winnipeg Sun's Scott Billeck.

"I loved the defense corps last year individually ... But as a group, there was lots of room for us to get to another level."

Winnipeg's defensive exodus began in the summer of 2019 when they lost Jacob Trouba to the New York Rangers. Then Tyler Myers took his talents to the Vancouver Canucks on July 1, and Ben Chiarot signed with the Montreal Canadiens as a free agent three days later. Finally, the team granted Dustin Byfuglien a leave of indefinite absence in September of that year, with the two parties later agreeing to terminate Byfuglien's contract in April 2020.

The Jets have seemingly been piecing holes together on the backend ever since. Having a Vezina-winning goalie in Connor Hellebuyck certainly helps, but adding Brenden Dillon and Nate Schmidt in the offseason goes a long way in addressing the situation.

"We had a big back end, an expensive back end, and then really young kids," Maurice said. "We have a more veteran core there now, certainly on our blue line now, and our goalie who stops a whole lot of pucks."

At 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds, Dillon is the heaviest defenseman on the roster and will inject physicality into the lineup. Dillon can play shutdown minutes and averaged 18:56 minutes of ice time per game for the Washington Capitals last season. Meanwhile, Schmidt is a strong two-way defender but had a tough time with the struggling Canucks last year.

Perhaps most importantly for Winnipeg, an improved defense means the forwards can focus more on offense.

Maurice asked the Jets to be defensive-minded to make up for their glaring weakness on the blue line, which reflected in their offensive numbers. Winnipeg scored 270 goals in 82 games the season before losing the bulk of the club's defense. In the shortened 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns, the Jets failed to produce more than 250 tallies over an 82-game season.

"This will be, I would say, the best-balanced lineup we've had," Maurice said.

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